


a garden grows around us

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Series: fall in with you [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Arguing, Established Relationship, F/M, Making Up, Mirror Sex, Nipple Play, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Orgasm Delay/Denial, POV Female Character, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sex Talk, Stress Baking, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-14 04:19:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15380496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: The tears are back again and Darcy has no idea why they're comingnow, after months and months and months of quiet and calm. Clint rolls with it though, letting her cry through it all while he strokes her hair.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> At this point, I'm not sure this makes sense without the beginning parts of the series, sorry! As always with this series, it went a little AU during _Age of Ultron_ and related farm content, but the rest of it is sticking relatively close to MCU canon.

Okay, so the thing is, Darcy knows she's been getting bored, but until she's standing on a stool in the kitchenette part of the guest cottage she and Clint have been living in, flour and cocoa and superfine sugar _everywhere_ , trying for the fifth time to get a good overhead shot of a just-out-of-the-microwave mug cake, she maybe hadn't realized exactly _how_ bored she actually is. 

And when she ends up throwing the whole thing across the room in frustration at how bad her video of the making-of said mug cake really is, it's probably a good clue that it's maybe not just boredom but there might also be some stress and loneliness and oh, yeah, stress working on her, too.

Of course, that's exactly the time Clint comes in from whatever Wakandan Avengers-In-Exile meet-up (aka, beating the shit out of each other and calling it training) he's been out at and there's not anything Darcy can do to disguise just how weird the afternoon has gotten.

Clint takes in the mess—the flour and sugar and cocoa powder dusted liberally across the counters and floors, the shattered mug and its splattered gooey contents all over the wall and floor, and really, Darcy herself, because she's under no illusions that she is not a flaming _disaster_ by this point—and edges cautiously into their little set of rooms.

"Hey, darl—"

" _Don't_ ," Darcy snaps. There are times when his Let's-Keep-the-Civilians-Calm voice really pisses her off and this is definitely one of them. "Just, don't—say anything."

"I kinda have to, darlin'," Clint says. "At least to ask if you're okay…?"

"Does it _look_ like I'm okay?" Darcy snarls. It's not fair; she's not mad at him, not exactly, but he's there and she literally cannot stop the words boiling out of her mouth.

"Physically," Clint says quietly, coming over to where Darcy's still crouched on the floor. "Your hands."

Darcy looks down, seeing the dark, sticky smears all over her skin, and laughs once, a strangled, harsh laugh that's much more mocking herself than any humor. "No," she answers, biting out the word. "Just cake batter. No actual blood in sight." She looks up at him, at the worry and concern in his eyes that somehow pisses her off more, and spits out, "Sorry, no rescuing required today."

 _That_ gets him and he flinches, like a needle went straight into his skin. The sudden shame that floods over Darcy mixes with all the other emotions playing havoc with her brain and she bursts into tears. She starts to sag down onto the floor but Clint grabs for her.

"Don't," he's saying as he scoops her up. "There's glass everywhere." He gets her settled safely out of the blast zone and turns back to grab up a towel for the mess.

"Don't you _dare_ clean up after me," Darcy grits out in between the sobs. "I'll take care of it."

"It's no big—"

"I said, _I'll take care of it_ ," Darcy says, her voice rising to a half-scream by the time she's finished. Clint doesn't answer, but he at least steps away from the mess. Darcy buries her face in her hands and wills some sort of order to her emotions. She's still counting to slow down her breathing when Clint puts a glass of the juice-tea that they drink everywhere in the country and some ice wrapped up in a cloth on the table next to her.

"For your eyes," he says when Darcy looks up. "I'm gonna shower."

"Okay," Darcy manages to whisper. He starts to reach out, like he's going to brush her hair off her face, tuck it behind her ear, like he does every day, but stops himself and just heads back toward the bathroom.

Darcy can't even think of words bad enough to call herself.

She cries a little bit more, but really, that's not doing shit toward taking care of anything, so she drags herself off the stool and goes to collect some old cloths (because paper towels are a massive no-no here where they actually pay attention to the environment) to get started on clearing up her mess. 

However not fun scrubbing chocolate batter off the whitewashed walls is (spoiler alert: NONE OF THE FUN), it's still the easy part of the clean-up. She didn't do shit to the walls, not really. All it takes is a little effort to fix that particular disaster. 

Being a fucking bitch to the guy with whom she's _a)_ totally in love; and, _b)_ somehow managed to navigate the whole emotional minefield of an actual relationship while dealing with the insanity of superheroes and being on the wrong side of (bad) international law, is slightly more problematic. Especially since he's been trying to get her to deal with the emotional fall-out of her mad dash across the world practically since she'd arrived, and double-especially since she's been blowing him off with airy unconcern that is clearly waaaaay faux.

So, yeah, she is really _stupid_ sometimes and this is one of those times that she just can't wave her hand and pretend like it doesn't matter. 

The trouble is, she doesn't really know what to do other than try to apologize. Well, she could probably grow the fuck up, she guesses, but it might be too late for that to help. She's still sitting there on the barstool, dirty cloth in hand when Clint comes out of the shower, already in clean clothes, which meant he got dressed in the bathroom, which is really… not good. They haven't really bothered about getting dressed in privacy since long before they even got here to Wakanda. Darcy really doesn't like the undercurrent there, but seeing as how she'd just thrown the whole hero thing in his face, she's guessing she doesn't get much say in how comfortable he is around her. _Moron_ , she says to herself.

"Listen," Clint is saying, and Darcy wrenches herself out of her dumb head to pay attention. "If you need some breathing room, I can go crash with Wilson. He won't mi--"

"Wait, what?" Darcy yelps. "No!" She wants to thunk herself on the side of the head, just to be sure she hadn't knocked a few wires loose in her brain and is currently hallucinating Clint apologizing to _her_. Of course, said brain points out that Darcy hasn't even tried to apologize yet, and that she really, really needs to be doing that and maybe Clint's just done with trying to deal with an idiot Millennial and is trying to be nice about it. "I mean, if you want to go, that's okay, you should totally do that--I'll be fine, current stupidity to the contrary, and I'm really sorry about the screeching and the insults and--"

"Darlin', whoa," Clint says and Darcy is not too proud to admit that she nearly falls off the barstool in relief once she hears that _darlin'_. "You haven't run me off; I just wanna make sure you've got what you need to be okay."

"Oh, god," Darcy says, bursting into tears again. She is such a _fuck-up_ sometimes. She lets Clint gather her up this time--she probably shouldn't, but she is literally incapable of telling him no, no matter how much her brain is yelling at her mouth to say it. 

Clint gets her off the stool and across to the squashy couch without dropping her. Darcy just gives up trying to function and gloms onto him with all appendages, giving him her very best octopus impression. It can't be all that great for him, but he doesn't let go either, just holds her and talks to her (though he could be reciting the Brooklyn phone book for all that gets through Darcy's tears.)

He'd somehow even managed to grab the ice wrapped up in the towel, so when she (finally) stops with the serious sobbing, he gets it wrung out and onto her eyes. This, not so incidentally, means that Darcy can hide away from him for a few more minutes, so she is all about that, at least until the guilty part of her brain starts poking at her again. She supposes it does have a point, so she metaphorically reaches for her big girl pants and starts to straighten up.

"Here," Clint says, shifting under her. "Just move over this way, don't go…" 

Darcy manages to figure out that he wants her to switch sides on his lap and even better, manages to get that accomplished without elbowing him in the face or falling on _her_ face. It also gives her another 30 seconds of hiding time, but then she's settled again and Clint's saying, "Okay?" and she really does need to deal.

"Better," Darcy says, which is true and yet doesn't actually claim normalcy. Clint gets that subtle distinction (because of course he does), and kind of cuddles her closer, which is pretty okay (where 'pretty okay' == 'so awesome Darcy might totally cry again'. She manages to hold it together, though, yay for her tear ducts.)

"I thought you were off to the market today," Clint says. 

"I did go," Darcy says, leaving out the part about how exhausting it is to not speak the language, like, at all. Even when she'd been in Chile with Jane, she'd started off with at least a basic vocabulary. People are nice even though she obviously (obviously, obviously) is not a Wakandan, and they all tend to cluster around and pass her along to the one person in ten who speaks English or Spanish, so she gets her stuff, but then she has to come home and take a nap before she can do anything with it. 

Like she said, exhausting. And a little surprising, because she's been through this before, but never for so long, and never from a rock-bottom level of no understanding, not even the stuff that's shared through all the romance languages. She should have thought about that, but it's not like she really had much choice in this living arrangement. 

But language barriers are not anything that are insurmountable, so really, she just needs to buck the fuck up and quit with the whining, her brain points out.

"And then you came home and …?" Clint is clearly trying to non-judgmentally ask what the fuck was going on as he walked in the door, so Darcy sighs and gets on with it.

"I was trying to make a video and it was _awful_ and I got frustrated," she mumbles. 

"A video?" He's trying hard, but yeah, still not really making much sense of it all.

"Okay," Darcy sighs again. "I know the internet is, like, just a communications protocol for you--"

"Yeah, sorry, darlin', you know I'm the Gen X side of the Millennial boomlet."

"'Sokay," Darcy says, tipping her head back to press a kiss to his jaw. "You'll just have to take my word for this part, but people make these cooking GIFs, like not even videos, really, just overhead shots of them making recipes and they post them everywhere."

"Okay," Clint says. "I believe you. I have no idea why this is a thing, but sure, I can see it happening." He's deliberately playing up the _kids these days_ attitude because they have this ongoing generational feud about how weird each other's cohort is and it makes Darcy laugh when he acts older than Steve Rogers. Now is not an exception to that (mostly because he is once again being sweet and Darcy would rather laugh than start crying again.)

"Anyway," Darcy says once she finishes up rolling her eyes at him (he is not the only one who can play up the attitude, thanks very much), "they're usually these horrible, horrible recipes, like that start with a packet of ranch seasoning and a stick of margarine, gag me, so I thought I should make something real, but fun, you know?"

"Okay," Clint says again. "You do like the fun food." Darcy nods, but it's a little glum, because, yeah, there really hadn't been much fun happening.

"So I went out and found the stuff I needed and came back here and--" To Darcy's horror, she starts getting choked up again and has to stop and try to breathe.

"And it wasn't as easy as it looked, I'm guessing," Clint finishes for her, which is technically true, but…

"They are stupid, _trivial_ little videos, Clint," Darcy spits out. " _Nothing_ special--half of them clearly spend more money on the damned models' manicures than they do on anything else, and I didn't expect perfection, but I spent all afternoon and got _nothing_ that could even be called pathetic, and--" She has to stop to breathe (and to keep from screaming, but yeah, she's also completely out of breath.)

Clint doesn't say anything even though Darcy can see alllll kinds of stuff in his eyes. She finally sighs and says, "Go on. You can say it."

"I--" Clint hesitated, but then says, very clearly choosing his words carefully, "Not getting something right the first day you try it doesn't really seem to be enough to set you off like that."

"Yeah, probably not," Darcy mutters. 

"So, I'm thinking there's more going on," Clint says, and yes, Darcy has pretty much always known he's stubborn, but she has rarely been less enthused about the trait.

"I told you," she says through clenched teeth. "You can just say it. I'm not dealing well. You know it. Sam knows it. Hell," she adds, glowering at the wall where she can still see a mark from where the mug shattered, "anybody who was within twenty feet knows allll about it now."

"It doesn't matter what Sam or I know," Clint says. "It matters what you know."

"Fine," Darcy sighs. "I know it, too. Happy?" Clint doesn't say anything, which is probably for the best, except that Darcy can't even handle silence at this point. "But seriously, what do I have to be worked up about?"

"Darlin'--"

"No, really," Darcy insists. "All I did was get on a couple of planes and fly here. Nobody arrested me or put me in an illegal, black ops prison or restrained me or _beat_ me or--"

The tears are back again and she has no idea why they're coming _now_ , after months and months and months of quiet and calm. Clint rolls with it though, letting her cry through it all while he strokes her hair. 

"Your whole life's been turned upside down," he says once she's mostly back under control. "You got dragged halfway across the world because I--"

"Not your fault," Darcy says before he can get even one more word out. "Not your fault, not your fault, not your fault." She's almost singing it by the end, but really: not. his. fault. "We talked that possibility to death before you let me sign on for the actual relationship. We had Life On the Run lessons. We _rehearsed_ that shit. I got up before dawn for some of those practice runs--you better believe I wasn't living in a Superhero Girlfriend Barbie World."

Clint's mouth twitches up into a half-smile, which does very good things for Darcy's mood, at least for the few quick heartbeats that it lasts.

"It's different when it's real," he says.

"Yeah, it is," Darcy admits, "and I'm frustrated and bored, and everything takes so much energy."

"Maybe you could talk to someone?" Clint suggests with more tact than Darcy's ever seen him exhibit.

"Yeah?" Darcy says. "Is that what you're doing?" He doesn't drop his eyes, but boyhowdy, can Darcy tell he wants to. "That's what I thought."

He opens his mouth to give some excuse--Darcy can see it without even having to strain for it--and she says, "Yeah, don't give me that shit about how you're trained for all this, or how it's not the worst thing that's ever happened, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." She manages not to glare at him, but really, at least a little part of her stress is about him, too. "I used to take my granddad to the VA hospital when he had appointments--it's pretty damn hard to miss all the counseling sessions going on there. Plus, you know, it's not like Sam didn't make a living at it, so clearly, people who think they're clear probably aren't."

"No, they probably aren't," Clint finally says. 

It's not much, but it _is_ something, and Darcy knows enough about giant issues to know you have to celebrate all forward progress, no matter how little, so she lets herself curl into Clint's arms and breathe for a bit.

After a while, Clint says, "I've been talking with T'Challa--"

"Mmmm," Darcy hums dreamily. "T'Challa."

"I don't know, darlin', but I'm thinking I should maybe start getting a little offended when my girl goes all moony about another guy."

"About the _king_ ," Darcy corrects, teasing now. Clint snorts. "Yeah, no, you're fiiiiiine, you know that. There's just… a lot going on over there with His Majesty, what with the crown and the clothes and the panther thing. Way out of my league though." She tips her head back so she can press a kiss against the curve of his jaw, right where he likes it best, which is not at all an accident. "I mean, have you met his girlfriend?" 

Clint gives her a quick grin, and yeah, Nakia is definitely his type, but Darcy is going to be a grown-ass, not-insecure woman (especially since she's started this whole thirsty line of conversation) and just grin back.

Not freaking out about who she's stacking herself up against is a lot easier than it used to be, so maybe, _possibly_ , Darcy has grown as a person during this whole post-Avenger-split shitshow? It could happen, she tells herself, and then bumps her head into Clint's shoulder to get his attention.

"T'Challa," she says. "Without the sidetracking…?"

"Yeah," Clint says. "They have a group that works with the people they send out to the rest of the world, when they come home and have to decompress and re-adjust. His people can set something up for you to talk to them."

Clint is working every single ounce of non-judgmental support he can find. Darcy can feel it in how carefully he's holding her. If she hadn't already set new standards for being a weepy, moody, clinging idiot, she'd be choked up by how hard he's working it. Since she _has_ set new standards, she just sighs and reminds herself there's a reason she's putting up with all this insanity and it's currently breathing very slow and steady and radiating a lot of love and caring.

This could also be the reason she's not really worried about the Nakias and Natashas and Mockingbirds of his world. (Unless, of course, she continues to be an idiot, her brain adds sternly.)

"I could," Darcy says. "What about you?"

"That could happen, too," Clint says, which is totally shocking. Darcy tries not to show that (because of course that will just make him get all emotionally shut down) but she can't help hugging onto him again. This doesn't seem to trigger any tripwires, though, and after a while she's less hugging and more snuggling, which again, not a bad thing.

This, she can also admit, is generally the time when they kind of reach their limit on words and speaking them and usually end up on the way to some (pretty freaking excellent, if she does say so herself) let's-ignore-the-world sex. 

As coping mechanisms go, it's definitely healthier than booze and/or drugs, and cheaper than internet shopping; plus, it has the added bonus of being a coping-together thing. All-in-all: perfect, except for how nothing ever really gets solved.

She's too wrung out to start anything now, though (and she should probably admit that she's usually the one who starts these sorts of things, but only because they're still working through Hawkeye's age-differential-related squishiness and thus still mostly lets Darcy set the pace. There's also probably some guilt in there that maybe they should talk about, too, but all this thought of talking is really wearing Darcy down, so for right now she is just cuddling.)

"So you're thinking about making videos," Clint says somewhere in the middle of all the cuddling.

"It seemed like a fun idea at the time," Darcy mutters darkly. Snark is probably not helpful at the moment, though, so she shrugs a little shrug and adds, "Like I said, all kinds of stupid, uncreative people seem to be doing it. I thought, y'know, it'd keep me gainfully occupied. God knows I've accumulated enough useless but tasty recipes over the years."

"Did I ever tell you Coulson ate like half of the chocolate-covered potato chips you gave me after that first night?"

"You did not," Darcy says, equal parts delighted (at the thought of Coulson, of all people, scarfing down her trash food), horrified (at the thought of _Coulson_ scarfing down her trash food), and indignant (because she'd given those damn things to the hot guy who'd made out with her, _not_ his stuffed-shirt boss.) "Did he get chocolate all over his suit? Did he sacrifice a handkerchief? _Did he lick his fingers?_ "

There's a moment of utter silence after that last thing, and then Clint says, "That, uh, moved into disturbing territory in record time, even for us."

"It's been a trying day," Darcy says, agreeing. "Week. Month. Hell, the whole year has been weird. Feel free to ignore that last question."

"I wish I could," Clint mutters. "Now it's just in my head."

"Mine, too; sorry," Darcy sighs, closing her eyes. "Bad brain, no cookies for you," she adds. Clint snorts and she feels her own mouth curve up into a reluctant half smile.

"Edging back around to the actual food," Clint says, and even without looking Darcy can tell he's still amused by her, which is fabulously much better than even 30 minutes ago, "they were about the best thing I'd tasted in I don't even remember how long."

"Chocolate chips and Ruffles, food of the goddesses," Darcy quips.

"I'm just saying, they made me happy. They made _Coulson_ happy, and trust me, he was really fucking not-happy after Puente Antiguo." Clint shifts Darcy around a little and drops a kiss in her hair. Darcy supposes she could get off him before she cuts off all blood flow to vital areas, but he seems fine, so she's going to pretend like she hasn't thought about it. "Go," Clint says, "make a video or whatever and see how many other random strangers you can make happy."

Darcy tips her head back to look up at him suspiciously, but he is totally serious. 

"The stuff I did this afternoon really sucked," she says. 

"So, look on youtube and see if there's a how-to." He arches an eyebrow at her. "I'd tell you to read a book but then we'd get into how I'm old and out of touch, so."

"You are being way too practical about this," Darcy mock-grumbles. "Is this how you manage your junior agents?"

"Darlin'," Clint laughs. "You know better than that--there's a reason they stick me up high in a nest, way far away from everyone, and it's not just because of my eyesight."

"So I'm special?" She says it lightly and unthinkingly, really not trolling for strokes (at least she's pretty sure she's not), but she sees a flash of something in his eyes right before he says, very, very seriously, "You are, and if I'm not making that clear, that's on me."

"It's not," Darcy says, wishing for the millionth time for a little bit better control and coordination between her brain and her mouth. "I mean, you have, and it's not on you." She sits up and squirms around until she gets her legs around his waist and her eyes on the same level of his (and so much for trying not to injure anything sensitive.) "Swear. My mouth just clicked over to auto-pilot and went for the cheap crack, _not_ the Freudian slip."

She presses a kiss to his mouth, which ends up sidetracking her a little because he kisses back. Extensively. And when he finally lets her up for air, she goes down an entirely different rabbit hole with his eyelashes and just how much she enjoys being up close and personal with them. (Also, how envious she is of them, but eh, guys always end up with the better lashes.) Also, she is totally there for ringside seats to his eyes and their shifting colors. She definitely needs to appreciate them more often.

"Don't tell me what you think I want to hear," Clint says, his voice low and uneven enough that Darcy comes flying back from raptures about his eyes and lands with a jolt in the current reality. "I know being stuck like this is a fucked-up deal—

Darcy's mouth kind of takes over again, but maybe in a better way, and she hears herself saying, "Okay, okay, yeah, sometimes it sucks and I don't say it, but that's because I refuse to whine about living in a palace." Clint starts to call her on that little piece of BS, but she puts her fingers against his mouth to hush him and goes on, "Seriously. We're on the grounds; it counts. And," she sighs, "I do not want to dump my shit on you, which, don't even try to front, you'd take it as your fault and that sucks even more."

"You need to talk about it," Clint says as soon as she drops her hand.

"Probably," Darcy mutters. "Doesn't mean I _want_ to talk about it."

"Yeah, with you there."

Darcy puts her head down on his shoulder, kind of snuggling in under the curve of his jaw. "Being responsible and mentally healthy is hard," she sort-of/sort-of-not fake-whines.

Clint curls his arms around her and relaxes against her. "If it helps, Nat probably won't believe I willingly participated in this conversation even if we give her video."

"Participated?" Darcy snorts. "You started it. You were a sane, rational adult and no one even saw it. They'll think I'm genuinely losing my marbles."

Clint laughs a little and they stay wrapped up with each other until Darcy very nearly falls asleep. It's probably not all that long—they did actually drop a lot of stress and that's exhausting. It's also really satisfying, because, hey! Talking happened. Maybe for the first time since she's been in Wakanda, or at least since things sort of calmed down and it got clear that they were going to be there for a while. She'd stay right there for as long as Clint wants to hold her, but his phone bings and he says, "Now would probably be the time to mention that I told Wilson to come hang out and eat dinner with us tonight." He drops a kiss on Darcy's head. "If you don't want to--"

"No, it's cool." Darcy pretty much adores Sam Wilson--they fell into some kind of extended sibling relationship about an hour after Darcy got to Wakanda--and it's always good when he's around. She's a mess but he doesn't ever judge. "He's got good energy."

She half-expects Clint to roll his eyes and make some comment about 'woo-woo energy', but he just shrugs like he agrees. Such is the power of the Falcon, Darcy supposes. The only bad thing is that she's sticky and gritty from the long afternoon of baking experiments, and as much as she'd just like to stay right there on Clint's lap, it's probably better if she gets cleaned up before dinner guests arrive, even if it is only Sam.

"Okay," Darcy sighs. "I'm going to shower. Before all this sugar and crap has to be sandblasted off." She kisses his throat and starts to detangle herself. "Sorry, sorry…" She ends up half-falling off him, but it's not like he's unaware of her occasional lack of coordination. He doesn't laugh at her, but he does send her off with smiling eyes.

The shower feels amazing, like it's getting rid of way more than just the sad remains of her kitchen adventures. She decides the hassle of dealing with wet hair is worth spending a little extra time under the water so she's running a little late by the time she finishes wringing the extra water out of her hair and gets herself wrapped up in a towel. 

"Oh, nice view," Clint says as she makes a run for the clean laundry that's still piled on top of the washer from where she'd yanked it down off the line before the daily storm had rolled through. She's managed not to completely lose the towel, but she's sure to have flashed him at least once. Towels, even ones that are as generously sized as this one, are not known for providing much cover for curves like she's got. She wiggles her hips at him--and, proof-positive, nearly loses the whole thing. "Even better."

"Whoops," Darcy sputters, half-laughing and grabbing for where the tucked-into-each-other top edges are rapidly separating. As far as Clint goes, it doesn't really matter if the towel does end up on the floor, but it'd be just her luck that Sam would walk in early. Judging from the little smirk on Clint's face, he's gotten a pretty good show--like, enough that she kinda expects to get fucked right then and there--but he must be thinking the same thing about Sam, because when he reels her in on her way back to the bedroom, he keeps it to a long, _wicked_ kiss and a quick, skimming pass under the towel. Darcy's still breathless when he lets her go, because he is, as might have been previously noted, _good_ with his hands; and, as also noted earlier, has spent a fair amount of time recently working out exactly what gets Darcy going.

"Hold that thought," Darcy gasps, the nerve endings under the skin of her inner thighs and the underside of her breasts sitting up and yelling for more as she staggers back toward the bedroom. She's barely two steps in when Sam shows up, so clearly, this is still part of her penance for being a drama-queen earlier in the day. She manages to get all the way dry and pulls on clothes with a sort of calm, though, because she really does know there's a payoff on the way. 

"Patience," she tells her reflection as she twists her hair up and pins it out of her face. Sam's saying something in the other room that has Clint barking with laughter. It's a really good sound. "It'll all be fine."

She's mostly talking about dinner and what's clearly on the horizon for when they're alone again, but as she opens the bedroom door, it occurs to her that she probably should be applying the thought to the rest of her life, too.

Sometimes, she's maybe not totally stupid after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that this bumped up to Explicit at this point.

The immediate wait is _totally_ worth it.

Part of that, Darcy thinks hazily, is because they hadn't actually been using sex to ignore the hard shit. They'd talked and admitted a few less-than-happy things, and then had been a couple having a good time with a friend, like life was normal. (Sam had had a blast with the idea of Darcy doing crazy cooking videos, looking up examples and prodding her to write down as many of her odd concoctions as she could think up while they ate. He'd also sworn he'd help eat the results, which would give Clint a reprieve, because Darcy knows how many miles it takes to burn off some of the really crazy stuff and not even Clint's dedicated, keeping-up-with-the-supers regimen has enough going for it if she really gears up production.)

The rest of the _excellent_ payoff is due to Clint having clearly put some thought into strategy and timing, because Darcy knows Sam probably hadn't even gotten into his cottage right next door before Clint had her bent over the bed, her skirt pushed up and her panties yanked out of the way.

(Darcy will admit to a little strategizing of her own, because the skirt had not been an accident. She really hadn't seen any need to set up having to wrestle herself out of jeans or shorts when she'd been getting dressed. Not only Avengers think ahead.)

The next part is pretty blurry (hey, she'd been waiting for hours by that point, plus there are times when getting fucked from behind really, seriously does it for her and tonight had definitely been one of them), but Darcy thinks she might have lasted all of a minute before she'd been coming. That one had been short and sharp, everything spiralling in so fast and tight she'd nearly forgotten how to breathe. Clint had followed hard on her heels, holding her exactly how he wanted her and fucking her through it all.

She'd still been in the blurry stage then, but she knows this is where the advance planning had come in. Clint isn't one for post-orgasmic deep thought, but he'd been moving almost immediately, prodding and encouraging her to get fully up on the bed. He'd taken care of their clothes somewhere in there, too, so that by the time he'd gotten them settled in, him sitting up against the headboard, Darcy between his legs, leaning back against him, they were both naked. Everything had still been hazy and indistinct, but she definitely remembers the skin-on-skin contact, everywhere. It'd been--and remains--pretty glorious.

Darcy still has no idea where her glasses ended up, but she thinks that's saved her from having to deal with how embarrassed she gets watching herself have sex. Clint thinks she looks fabulous, which is awesome and all, but if she sees herself, it knocks her right out of the sexy feels place. With her glasses somewhere between the couch and the bed, she can just lean back and let Clint talk her through what he's seeing in the mirror across from the bed. 

This time, everything is slow and easy. Clint has his legs wrapped around Darcy's so she doesn't even have to pay attention or do anything when he wants her to move them. He smooths his hands down her sides and legs and then, once he gets her spread open, traces that same path up the insides of her thighs. He lets her play with her nipples at the start, but only for a little while and only if she does it how he wants it done, ie, slow, barely there touches, just like he's ghosting over her thighs and between her legs. 

Nice, but aggravating.

Darcy plays the game, though, because she's already come ( _hard_ , too) and she's willing to go where he's leading way more often than actually happens. When she finally gets to where the aggravating takes over the nice and breathes, _More, please_ , Clint smiles against her and nips at her ear lobe. 

"I got you," he murmurs, catching her hands and putting them down on the bed. He flicks his nails over her nipples, hard enough to make her hiss, but only once, and then he's back to those maddening, light, light touches. Darcy grinds her teeth, but lets him keep playing his little game. "Easy," he says, because of course he notices her jaw tightening.

"You are going to make this worth my while, right?" Darcy grits out.

"You know I will," Clint answers. Since he punctuates that claim with quick tweaks to her nipples, Darcy doesn't snark back. Added bonus: he picks up the pace and intensity. Instead of the quick, skimming touches, he's graduated to using his nails, scratching just hard enough to make Darcy squirm. With the way he has his legs wrapped around hers, she can't really move much beyond how he has her, but she also can't make herself be still.

He keeps his hands moving, skipping from the inside of her thighs to her stomach to skimming along her collar bones and then back down over her breasts. Darcy's brain is skipping along with him and by the third and fourth round of all this she's not so much breathing as gasping and really, seriously not getting more than a second or two of coherent thought at any one time. 

"Love watching you like this," Clint breathes into her ear as he stops all the jumping around to pay some special attention to her breasts, squeezing and rolling her nipples until she's whimpering helplessly. "All of you, just for me."

Darcy wants to tell him that he's all hers, too, but he drops one hand down to where he's got her legs spread wide and starts playing with her clit and she literally isn't sure how to form words. 

"Just like that," Clint tells her, as her hips try desperately to push up into the quick, darting touches that are just barely grazing her. He keeps his other hand busy with her nipples, but it's mostly back to the barely-there shit, mixing in a hard pinch or tug just often enough to remind her of what she's missing the rest of the time. "Too fucking gorgeous," he says.

He's watching her in the mirror across the room and with how sharp his eyesight is, how focused he can get, Darcy knows there's nothing he can't see. Half her brain wants to hide in embarrassment, but the rest of it has apparently given up and decided that he can have whatever he wants as long as he's making her feel as good as he is.

"Could watch you all night," Clint murmurs, his voice a low rumble that almost breaks into a self-satisfied laugh when Darcy can't help the long shudder that sweeps over her at the thought of having to stay on the edge like this for more than just a little longer. He'd do it, too--has done it, more than once--and sometimes Darcy is more than okay with letting him, but tonight she's got a few ideas of her own.

"Tell me," she manages to gasp. "All of it, everything you see, tell me."

It's more of a demand than a request, but that's not something that bothers either of them.

"Where do you want me to start?" Clint asks in his best smart-ass tone, but when Darcy half-growls at him, he gets with the program, leaning close to whisper, "I see how you're biting your mouth raw, darlin'." He's not wrong; as Darcy's tongue sweeps out over her bottom lip reflexively, she can feel the roughness from where she's scraped off layers of skin. "You've worked it so hard I'll bet it'll still be red when I fuck it in the morning."

Darcy groans at that, but then immediately says, "Don't stop there."

"You're all flushed," Clint says. "Your face, all along here--" He traces a finger across her upper chest and Darcy just has time to hope that she's not completely blotchy (you never know what with her stupid too-pale skin) before he goes on. "And there are these pretty things." Clint flicks at her nipples, hard enough to make her choke out one _fuck_ after another. "They're here at the party, too."

"That's on you--," Darcy starts to answer, but her words slide into a wordless yelp as he clamps his fingers down on her, the better to twist her nipples ruthlessly. "Ah, _god_ ," she cries, her voice rising. He lets go just before she starts wailing, easing back to where he's plucking at them lightly, just enough to not let her catch her breath. 

"Now you're shaking," he tells her, his voice low and rough. "I'm barely getting started, darlin'."

Darcy wants to answer back smartly, but he's not giving her any kind of a break and the only thing she can manage is a wavering, "Promises, promises." It's enough to make him laugh, though, and go back to those hard flicks, faster now and relentless. Darcy really is shaking now, twisting and squirming, not entirely sure if she's trying to get away or trying to get him to do more. She doesn't think she has much choice in the matter--it's definitely one of those nights where Clint's going to do exactly as he wants, no matter how she might beg. He'll stop if she needs to, but otherwise, she's there for whatever he wants her for. 

"It's like my own private porn show," Clint says, his voice still low, only barely loud enough that she can hear him over how hard her blood is pounding. He's not going anyplace that's really scary--mostly, all he's doing is rubbing hard with the pad of his thumb, occasionally catching at her with the edge of his nail--but he's pushed her into some kind of a zone where she can't catch her breath or settle herself into everything he's making her feel. "And the best part is, I can keep it going, 'slong as I want."

No matter how hard Darcy bites down on her bottom lip, she can't stop the whimpers that he's pulling out of her. She's never been able to come just from having someone play with her like this, but he's really not backing off and she's already half-crazy from how her nipples are throbbing and tender and her clit is aching for any kind of a touch. She can't wrap her brain around more of it all. 

She kindof has to, though, because Clint isn't showing any signs of being ready to end it, not at all. He just keeps talking to her and playing with her, teasing her until she's crying and begging and almost doesn't hear him ask if she's ready to finish up. 

"Wait," she sobs, frantic at the thought of missing her chance. "Please, yes." He doesn't answer for what feels like forever, and Darcy's brain half-loses it, and she hears herself keening _pleasepleaseplease_ again and again and again. 

Clint pinches at the very tips of her nipples, digging his nails into the aching, hypersensitve flesh and twisting hard to shock her silent.

"Sure thing, darlin'," he says. Darcy is going to have _words_ with him about that smug tone, but then he's pinching at her again and her brain goes up in smoke. Clint lets go of her just long enough that the blood rushes back in before he does it again, but harder, and then one more time, harder still. before he drops his hands down and drags his nails over her clit. Darcy wails, her brain jumping wildly between throbbing ache in her nipples and the jagged spikes of pleasure from her clit. 

"There you go," Clint murmurs from some place super-far away from where Darcy's teetering on the edge. "I can see how close you are, darlin'." He drags his nails up the inside of her thighs, holding her steady as she squirms and fights to get him closer to where she _needs_ him, one last tease before he scrapes over her clit again and Darcy's world goes white.

*- * - *

"Okay," Darcy sighs, an indeterminate amount of time later. She's still wrapped up with Clint, but it's all relaxed now. "So, what was all that?"

"Sex?"

He's got the smug tone again; Darcy pinches his thigh just on principle.

"No," she says. "Sex is what we call that first act. This whole thing in here was something else."

"A little less-vanilla sex?" Clint's trying for the smug thing again, but Darcy can hear how it's not quiiiite there. She considers his words, but then shakes her head.

"No," she says thoughtfully. "We've done that, too, and there's generally a whole lot of talking and checking-in going on, which was conspicuously absent here--" she holds up her hand because she can feel him tensing against her. "No, I'm fine, don't freak out on me." She pats his arm where it's looped over her stomach, holding her close. "I'm just saying, that's not feeling right either.."

It gets quiet for a while, but then Clint sighs out. "Possibly a diversionary tactic?"

"I'll buy that," Darcy answers. "I just can't figure out what I was being diverted from…?"

"The rest of your day?" Clint says. "This disaster of a situation? How goddamned little I can do about it all?" 

"I--okay?" Darcy tips her head back to try to get a read on his expression. It's about as even as always, but she pretty sure he's about to go off down some rabbit hole. "I am not going to turn down crazy-good sex, but it's not--" She searches for the right word and finally settles on "--necessary."

"It was fun, though, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah." Darcy is going to be feeling the aftereffects for at least a couple of days. "Definitely fun. A little one-sided, though."

"Yeah, no," Clint snorts, sounding much more like his usual sarcastic self. Darcy surprises herself with how much that relaxes her. "I was right there with you, darlin'. _And_ I've got it in my brain."

Darcy's brain helpfully supplies her a little snippet of Clint's voice telling her she was his own private porn and it's probably good that she's already lying down, because she can tell she'd be a little weak-kneed about it all. She gives herself a mental shake and finds her voice long enough to say, "You definitely have to tell me when you're replaying it all."

"Deal," Clint says, sounding maybe as taken by the idea as she is. Darcy has another mental image of how _that_ might play out, because she can totally see how it might bridge some of the longer absences that have been happening. Again with it being good that she's already horizontal. Her imagination is totally on a roll.

"Okay," Darcy says, suddenly worn right-the-fuck-out. "It has been _such_ a day. My brain is telling me I have about 4 seconds before it's shutting down, so I will take you at your word and think about it tomorrow."

"Sure, Scarlett," Clint says, and whatever else this enforced down-time has done for them, they have had amazing sex and some wicked awesome movie-watching. Clint reaches out for the light. "If you want, Wilson and I have to go up to the mountains tomorrow. Check in on one of Shuri's projects. You can come along if you want."

Darcy is ridiculously excited by this suggestion, which probably says something about how much they've been isolating themselves. "I could do that," she manages to say without squeaking but then the day hits her like a ton of bricks and she's barely awake enough to hear him say, "You got it, darlin'."

She does hear it, though, and it’s looking like that’s always going to be enough to send her off to a deep, dreamless sleep, so things aren't looking so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Garden_ , by Sean Hayes.
> 
> I'm [**topaz119**](http://topaz119.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to come say hi or please feel free to [reblog](http://topaz119.tumblr.com/post/176896327788/a-garden-grows-around-us-clintdarcy-22) if you like.
> 
> I've been keeping track of posts that remind me of this series on [this](http://topaz119.tumblr.com/tagged/mbb2) tag, with Darcy's food ideas on [the yummiest](http://topaz119.tumblr.com/tagged/the-yummiest) (which I kindof think what she's going to end up calling her youtube channel.)


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